Seven Arrested at Demonstration in Front of the Soviet Embassy

October 24, 1985

WASHINGTON (Oct. 23)

Seven participants in a conference on Soviet Jewry here were arrested yesterday at a demonstration in the front of the Soviet Embassy. The planned arrest of the demonstrators was the sixth in a series held at the Soviet Embassy in recent months by Soviet Jewry activists from the Washington area and elsewhere.

The demonstration yesterday concluded a twoday annual meeting of the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews (UCSJ), which drew participants from Soviet Jewry Action Committees across the country. Like the previous five protests, it was sponsored by the Washington Board of Rabbis.

Out of some 60 demonstrators, the seven choosing to be arrested by moving to within 500 feet of the Embassy included Sergey Broude, a former refusenik, now living in Boston; and June Daniels, vice president of the UCSJ and co-chairperson of Des Moines Action Committee for Soviet Jewry.

Like those who have been arrested in earlier protests at the Soviet Embassy, the demonstrators were charged and released pending a hearing.

The UCSJ conference, at a dinner Monday night, presented the Anatoly Shcharansky Award to Rep. Dante Fascell, (D. Fla.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a former chairman of the Helsinki Commission — a Congressional group which monitors compliance with the Helsinki accords.